Optimism linked to healthier eating among women

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women with a sunny disposition
may also have an easier time adopting healthy habits, according
to a new study.

Researchers found that women who were more optimistic were
better able to follow healthy eating guidelines, both when they
were instructed to do so and when they chose to make changes on
their own.

The authors noted that the biggest help for making diet
improvements is not necessarily optimism itself, but the skills
that tend to go with it.

"It's not just having a sunny outlook - rather, this is a
marker of other things people do," said Melanie Hingle, a
dietician at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She led the
new study, which was published in the Journal of the Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics.

"People who want to make lifestyle changes should focus on
skill-based factors that can help them whether or not they are
an optimist," she told Reuters Health.

The study used data collected as part of the Women's Health
Initiative, a study of a national sample of postmenopausal women
between the ages of 50 and 79.

The researchers analyzed data from two groups of women: more
than 13,500 who had been part of a program to improve their
nutrition - mainly by decreasing fat intake - and another
20,000-plus who were not asked to make any changes to their
diet.

The women's optimism levels had been evaluated with a
questionnaire as part of the study. Another survey aimed to
evaluate the overall healthfulness of participants' diets at the
beginning of the study and one year later.

Hingle and her team found that the most optimistic one third
of the women saw the most improvement in their diets, whether or
not they had completed the nutrition program.

On a scale measured from zero to 110, where higher numbers
indicate better diet quality, women with the highest optimism in
the nutrition program improved their diet by 1.8 points, and
those with the lowest optimism improved their diet by 1.4
points. Among women not in the program, scores improved by 1.0
point for those with the highest initial optimism and by 0.3
points for those with the lowest. The differences were
considered statistically meaningful.

The least optimistic women also started out with
less-healthy diets, on average, than those who had sunnier
dispositions.

Yet optimism itself is almost beside the point, Hingle said.

People who want to adopt healthier behaviors - whether
quitting smoking, eating more vegetables or getting more
exercise - should instead focus on the skills that tend to make
optimistic people successful at those ventures, she said.

"You can't tell someone who's a pessimist to be an optimist.
Instead, look at the traits that make optimists successful,"
Hingle said.

One such skill is self-regulation, or being aware of one's
behavior as it is unfolding. In the case of healthy eating, that
includes monitoring eating habits, whether by making a mental
note or keeping tabs in a journal.

Self-regulation is "choosing what you are eating and making
a conscious decision in that moment," Hingle said.

Another strategy to successfully adopt a new habit is
finding healthy ways to cope with unpleasant emotions and stress
instead of, for example, eating junk food or smoking. For junk
food addicts, that means getting the unhealthy foods they tend
to reach for when stressed - whether potato chips, cake or
sugary soft drinks - out of the house, and channeling
frustration into something more productive.

"It's about finding a different activity to occupy that
moment when you're feeling stressed, such as coping with
breathing exercises, talking to a friend, going for a walk or
even going through some guided imagery," Hingle said.

"The goal is to help you move past that stressful moment
instead of reaching for food," she said.

Optimistic people may also have better social support,
whether as a cause or a result of their more-positive thinking.
That's important because the support of friends and family can
make it easier to get healthy.

The point, Hingle said, is that learning new skills can help
anyone trying to turn over a new leaf.

"It doesn't really matter if you're an optimist or a
pessimist. Either way, you can make positive changes to your
diet," she said.

SOURCE: bit.ly/1nYO684 Journal of the Academy of Nutrition
and Dietetics, online February 21, 2014.

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